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Every now and again I’ll set myself a challenge on my Facebook page, usually 21 days of painting some subject or other. The last one I did was ‘portraits’, a subject which make me anxious (getting a person’s look can be stressful!). Anyway, I’ve posted all 10 that I did for the challenge up on Facebook and DeviantArt, but I thought I’d post here the last one I painted of Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane from the Spider-Man films. It took me a good while of meticulous work, but I was really pleased in the end and it was a joy to do! So much so, I’m working on another Mary Jane pic Hope you like it. I’m outta here,...

Here’s a painting I did towards the end of last year called ‘So Can I?’. It’s Lydia Deetz from Tim Burton’s ‘Beetlejuice’ taken from near the end of the film where Lydia (Winona Ryder) has asked if she can be ‘possessed’ in the way her parents and their friends were earlier in the film with the song ‘Day-O’ around the dinner table. More shrimp anyone!? This time around, Lydia gets to dance, mid-air, to ‘Jump in the Line’ as credits roll. Well, I was mightily thrilled that one Bobbi Thompson (the first agent for Tim Burton and James Cameron) had seen my painting of Lydia on DeviantArt and had asked if I would enter it into an exhibition of Tim Burton fan art in LA! I said ‘yes’ and had it printed, mounted and framed and hastily sent over to America where it, hopefully as we speak, is being mounted to the wall for the show this weekend (28th-29th Jan 2017). The show is called ‘Stay Peculiar’. I wish I could go, but living here in England, I can’t Here’s a few links: https://www.facebook.com/events/1043181552475372/ https://www.joyfactorygallery.com/tim-burton-fan-art-tribute Incidentally, the painting was done on Photoshop CS6 using a Wacom tablet. I’m outta here,...

Wow! An age since my last post, but I’m still going, probably more than ever! I’ve a few posts to do that’ll I’ll add over the coming days. First though, I’m adding my Facebook page and DeviantArt profile to the site. As well as links I’ve just added in this post, you can find them at the bottom of each page in the footer area. I haven’t got Twitter ‘cos I really can’t stand the thing! All those hash tags and @ signs drive me nuts! Haha! I’m outta here,...

Well, it’s been a while since my last post (yup, you’ve heard that on here before!), but this isn’t going to be anything major. All I’ve done is updated my Gallery with 9 images that I just haven’t gotten around to posting on this Blog. It’s about time I did something! So, click here to see what I’ve been up to (artistically speaking). Most of the images are done on Photoshop, which I’m learning a lot more about and enjoying myself into the bargain. The very wonderful Matt Dixon has been a huge help in this. At Comic Cons he’s always got an ear to lend and advice to pass on and his videos are awesome! Great guy! Go check him out Right then, erm…..I’m outta here!...

Here’s my latest website The Garden Gate Guest House, a privately run guest house near Chester city center. So if you’re visiting the area and need a place to stay, I’d recommend it It’s been awhile since I last did a website, but I enjoyed it all the same and reminds me how much more I love WordPress over Joomla! I’m outta here,...

Here’s Anna similarly done to Elsa (a few posts back). I really enjoyed doing this and I prefer it to Elsa. The eyes are less touched up in Photoshop so it looks SO much closer to the original. Enjoy! I’m outta heeeeeerrrrre!...

Not a big entry this time, just a few pics! I did a drawing of Elsa from Frozen (never seen it!) using normal pencil with the eyes coloured in with blue pencil. I wasn’t fussed with the eyes; I wanted them brighter! So, I did what I like doing more often nowadays and stuck it in Photoshop and played around with it there, mainly bringing out the eyes but messing with the lights and shadows too. I liked the result. See what you think Pencil Drawing Photoshopped As you can see, I added a few more details to the drawing before I got it to the latter stage, mainly extending the pony-tail. Hope you like it! I’m outta here,...

Earlier this year, I decided to make a bit more use of my recently acquired graphics tablet, an accessory I had grand visions of using to create works of art I’d only ever dreamed about! I wasn’t sure what I was going to do or how exactly I was going to do it, but it was going to be either what’s called ‘photomanipulation’ or just do an image that replicated oil paintings (the type of which I’d seen in some of the awesome Magic: The Gathering cards). I chose the former of the two, primarily because I’d dabbled in the latter with poor results and didn’t really find the idea that appealing at the time (I just need more practice and better Photoshop brushes, I think!). As my subject, I chose Death, a character from Neil Gaiman’s awesome comic book series The Sandman. With her usual Gothic attire and silver Egyptian ankh constantly around her neck, she’s such an iconic figure and, I believe, became the comics most popular character. The photo I used for Death I’d seen had been used by a number of people on Deviant Art and this following picture (The Dark Messenger by Corvinerium) was by far the best and I just thought it was brilliant! Here’s the original photo of the girl herself: To which I added this following background: And the following butterfly: And then sprinkled a little Photoshop magic over it and came up with the following piece (click on it to see it bigger): I was really pleased with the finished result and absolutely loved doing it! Originally, I was going to have a body on the floor and have the scene at night time. The idea was that the butterfly represented the soul leaving the body in the form of a butterfly which Death has come to collect. I tried an image as I’ve explained, but it looked a bit messy and unreal (this is, after all, my first stab at photomanipulation). What I went for is simpler and far more effective, I think. I posted it on Neil Gaiman’s Facebook page and he gave it the thumbs up, which I was really pleased about Anyway, as ever, I hope someone out there enjoys it! I’m outta here!...

I was asked to do a drawing of Jack Skellington recently and found online a photo of him and his pet dog Zero. I think it’s taken from some figures that were designed for the Kingdom Hearts video game by Square Enix. Anyway, I decided to do Zero too and did it in coloured pencil, a medium I rarely use. I thought it turned out good, but I was limited with the pencils I had. I wanted some parts lighter and some darker, as well as rectifying a few mistakes, particularly concerning his front leg which I thought thought just looked wrong. So, with the ever amazing Photoshop and my awesome new graphics tablet, I attempted to improve on it by using a bit of computer wizardry. I think I did pretty well with it and I was really pleased Well, below are the results. I did a sepia version too for the hell of it. I like Original pencil version. Photoshopped version. Sepia version. Hope some out there like it! I’m outta here, Jimbob...

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Imaginata

Imaginata is the website for myself, artist James Stenhouse. Based on the Wirral, dealing primarily with the selling of original art, I also deal with graphic design as well as selling giclee and canvas prints of original work.